She lifted his hand to her lips and kissed it. Considering she'd just thrown up all over his floor, Zinnirit winced at the gesture, but still allowed it. Danifae pressed the old drow's hand to her cheek. It felt warmer, less dry.
'Dear Zinnirit,' she whispered, looking the old mage in the eye, 'what has become of you?'
'I'm a thousand years old,' the mage replied. 'At least, I think I am. I have no House, just these three gates and whatever meager tolls I can charge. I'm a stranger in a strange city, with no House to protect me, no matron mother to serve. What has become of me? I can barely remember 'me'.'
Danifae kissed his hand again and whispered, 'You remember me, don't you, House Mage?'
He didn't reply but didn't take his hand away.
'You remember our lessons,' she said, punctuating her words with the gentle brush of her lips against his hand. 'Our special lessons?'
She took his finger into her mouth and let her tongue play over it. The old drow's skin was dry and tasteless then there was the tang of metal against her lips.
'I didn't. .' the mage mumbled. 'I don't. .'
Danifae slipped the ring off his finger, slowly teasing his flesh with her lips all the way. She tucked the ring under her tongue before kissing the back of his hand again.
'I do,' she said.
Danifae twisted the old drow's arm down and around hard and fast enough that more than one bone snapped in more than one place. Zinnirit gasped in pain and surprise and didn't even try to stop Danifae from turning him around. She brought her other hand up and cupped his chin. She was standing behind him, his broken arm twisted painfully behind his back.
'I remember,' she whispered into his ear. Then she broke his neck.
For any mage, the preparation of a day's spells was part experience, part intuition, and part inspiration. Pharaun Mizzrym was no different.
From time to time he looked up from his spellbook to refresh his eyes and let a particularly complex incantation sink into his memory. What he saw when he looked up was the still, quiet deck of the ship of chaos. Larger patches of sinew and cartilage and ever more complex traceries of veins and arteries embellished the bone ship. It lived—a simple, pain-ravaged, tortured, insensible life—and when it was quiet and the others were still in Reverie, Pharaun imagined he felt the thing breathing.
The uridezu captain lay in his place, visited only by the occasional rat. He was curled into a tight ball, his body wrapped into itself in a way that made Pharaun's back ache to look at it. His breathing was deep and regular, punctuated by the odd snore.
Jeggred sat opposite the captured demon, his knees drawn up to his chest and his head down. Unlike Pharaun and his fellow dark elves, the draegloth slept. Obviously that was a trait carried over from his father, Belshazu.
Well, the Master of Sorcere thought, you can't chose your parents.
Quenthel sat as far away from the rest of them as she could, at the very tip of the demon ship's pointed bow. Her back was turned to Pharaun, and she sat straight and stiff, meditating.
Can you talk? a voice echoed at the edge of his consciousness—a voice he recognized.
Aliisza?he thought back.
You remember me, the alu-demon's voice echoed more loudly in his head—or was it more clearly? I will consider that a supreme honor.
As well you should, Pharaun sent back, instinctively attaching light, playful emotions to the thought. Where are you?
On the ceiling, she replied, right above you.
Pharaun couldn't help but look up, but even with his fine dark-vision, the gloom of the Lake of Shadows hid the ceiling from his sight.
How did you find me? he asked.
I'm a resourceful, intelligent, and talented woman.
That you are, he replied.
If you levitate straight up, she sent, you'll come right to me.
Well,Pharaun returned, in that case. .
The wizard closed the book he was working on, the spell still not fully prepared, and tucked the volume back into his pack. He stood and touched the brooch that held his piwafwi on his shoulders.
Straight up? he sent.
I'll catch you, came the alu-demon's playful reply.
Pharaun's feet left the deck, and he accelerated, the ship falling rapidly away beneath him. When it was lost—or more properly when he was lost—in the pitch-dark shadows of the ominous cavern, he slowed.
'A little more,' Aliisza whispered to him, her voice barely audible.
Pharaun came to a stop slowly, a defensive spell hanging on his lips in case the alu-demon turned on him— she was a demon after all, so there was always some possibility of that.
There was a surprisingly loud rustle, and Pharaun looked up. Aliisza, her batlike wings spread out behind her, was slowly sinking toward him. He turned so they were facing each other.
They were almost together when Aliisza asked, 'Can your levitation hold me up?'
Pharaun almost had a chance to answer before her arms folded around his neck and her full—though not substantial—weight fell on him all at once. He concentrated hard on the brooch, almost losing his defensive spell in the process, and managed to hold them both aloft. They bobbed a bit at first, but ultimately managed a tight embrace in the gloomy air near the ceiling of the Lake of Shadows.
They were face-to-face, less than an inch apart. Pharaun could smell the beautiful alu-demon's breath. The touch of her skin against him, the curves of her body in his arms again, and the soft caress of her fleshy wings folding around him, enclosing him, made his body react of its own accord.
A playful smile crossed Aliisza's full lips, and she showed a set of perfect white teeth with the exaggerated canines of a vampire. Pharaun remembered her habit of playing with her teeth. He didn't bother wondering why he liked that about her so much.
'Yes,' she whispered, 'I remember you.'
Pharaun returned her smile and asked, 'So, what brings a bad girl like you to an evil place like this?'
That made her laugh.
'The Lake of Shadows?' she replied playfully. 'Oh, I try to get here a couple times a year, if I can. To take the waters.'
Pharaun nodded, smiled, but didn't bother extending the banter. Kaanyr Vhok's consort had come there for a reason, and he wasn't quite smitten, or egomaniacal enough to think it was only to see him.
'You're spying on us again,' he accused.
'No,' Aliisza replied with a pout, 'I'm spying on you still. Doesn't that make you feel important, having someone like me spying on you all the time?'
'Yes,' he said, 'and that's precisely the problem.'
'What do you hope to find in the Abyss?' she asked abruptly. Pharaun had to blink a few times to get his head wrapped around the question. 'That is where you're going in that wonderful old ship of chaos you've salvaged, isn't it?'
'What would Kaanyr Vhok care what we do,' he asked, 'or where we go?'
'Can't a girl be curious?'
'No,' he replied with some finality. 'In this case, no, she can't.'
'You can be quite the rodent when you want to be, Pharaun,' she said, and she smiled again.
'Shall I take that as a compliment?'
Aliisza looked him in the eyes. Drow and demon were both smart and pragmatic enough to know they weren't some pair of star-crossed human lovers. They might even be combatants on opposite sides of a war that could ruin both their civilizations—if Kaanyr Vhok's ragged Scoured Legion could be called a civilization.
'Can I come too?' she asked, tipping her head, and looking almost as if she were trying to read an answer written across his brow.
'With us?' he asked. 'On the ship?'
